There is a growing interest in using renewable feedstock for manufacturing biofuels, such as bioethanol, biochemical and biodiesel. As such, pre-treatment of the biomass is needed to increase the rate and/or yield of biofuel production.
Currently, the main methods used for pre-treatment are physical, such as milling, or chemical, such as acid pre-treatment. However, biological methods are a promising alternative since no harmful chemicals are used and less energy input is required.
However, pre-treatment attempts to date have fallen short of the desired economic and technical performance. Thereby, there exists a need for effective, economical pre-treatments to make these polysaccharides available at a sufficiently high yield and acceptable cost.